seconds & years
by Immoroita
Summary: her lips taste like peppermint and snowcones and damn, he loves it. [volkner x candice]


**/kiss number i.**

Volkner really, really hates welcoming new Gym Leaders.

He wouldn't have even come to this weird gathering with all the leaders from all the regions if it weren't for Jasmine and her quiet persuasion.

They've all been talking about her – the youngest person to ever be named an Ice-type Gym Leader. Volkner imagines a childlike girl who's bratty and obnoxious and rolls his eyes at the thought. Whitney will probably be best friends with her.

He stands in the corner of the room, talking to Jasmine, when suddenly the doors fly open and she glides in.

He stops immediately when she enters. Everything stops.

She is fresh-faced and optimistic and so completely, utterly fascinating. Cynthia hops onto her podium and introduces the girl as Candice, the newest Gym Leader to join the League. She smiles and waves at everybody. Everybody welcomes her with excited murmurs and a few shouts. She giggles and steps off the stage, where everyone immediately converges upon her.

Volkner watches her, lips parting a little, before turning away, back to Jasmine, who's looking at him with a slight smile on her lips.

"What is it?" he asks, and it comes out hoarser than he'd intended.

"Nothing," she says, and walks away swiftly.

The blond looks at her retreating back and shrugs a little, taking a sip of his drink, when there's suddenly a tap on his shoulder and an enthusiastic – if not slightly nervous – voice piping up behind him. "Hello! You're… Volkner, right?"

He turns to see a pair of eager blue eyes. "Uh, yeah, that's me."

"Candice!" she says cheerfully, sticking out a hand.

He says nothing, just looks at her silently.

Candice's hand lingers for a moment before she drops it, and clears her throat uncomfortably. "You're a real quiet guy, you know that?"

He sees a strand of hair fall over her face and wants to brush it away.

"Got any tips for a new Gym Leader such as myself?"

Volkner's eyes fixate on the movement of her lips, which are slightly pouty and light pink. They're dusted with something that looks vaguely like what he thinks snow would look like.

"Helloooo? Volkner?"

Sunyshore doesn't get snow. It's only sunshine and beaches in his town.

"Volkner!"

He talks to some of his challengers. They talk about how the snow looks as it floats to the earth and how it tastes when you stick your tongue out. It didn't snow the one time Volkner went to Snowpoint.

"Seriously, are you going to answer me?"

Volkner wonders just what snow tastes like.

"Are all Electric Gym Leaders like this?"

"You know," Volkner says quietly. "You should kiss me right now."

It slips from his lips and falls into disbelieving ears, and Candice hesitates for a moment, before grinning and pulling his face towards hers enthusiastically. Their lips touch and stay together for a second or two before parting.

It tastes like peppermint and snowcones and damn, he loves it.

Somewhere, far away from where they are, people are laughing and somebody has dropped their glass. All he can see is Candice's smile.

Volkner turns and immediately walks out of the building.

Flint shouts at him not to forget his gift bag and throws it at his head.

* * *

**/kiss number ii.**

Volkner's locking up the Gym for the night when someone shouts his name. He turns to see none other than Candice running towards him and freezes.

_Every goddamn time, _he thinks ruefully, as she stops in front of him and grins. _Every time she has to smile like that and render me completely speechless._

"Hi, Volkner!" she chirps cheerfully, and nearly stops his heart.

"What brings you to Sunyshore?" Volkner asks, keeping his voice level.

"Oh, y'know, this and that," Candice says airily, flapping her hands. "Plus, it was a slow day. Sunyshore is the prettiest place ever when it's night-time, so I decided to come out here for an evening." The girl spins around to look at everything. "Look at all the lights!"

Volkner rolls his eyes. "It's nothing special, to be honest."

"Of course you'd say that," the Ice-type Gym Leader snorts, and hops to his side, nudging him with her shoulder. "Get many challengers today?"

"Not really," the blond mutters, starting on the walk home. Candice walks beside him.

"How much is 'not really'?"

"… none."

Candice giggles. "You're welcome! Candice kept all your challengers away! If she wasn't so gifted and talented at battling, you would have a little boy on your hands trying to get your badge. Not telling you what Pokémon he has, though!"

"Wouldn't want you to," Volkner says in that faraway, quiet voice of his. Candice rolls her eyes and hits him. "Why are you always so quiet?" she demands.

He looks straight at her, realizing suddenly that they are standing on the bridge that overlooks the sea and that Jasmine usually comes here.

Why is it that he's thinking of Jasmine right now?

But all thoughts of the woman with the tinkling, reserved laugh and the gentle eyes are swept away when Candice stands on her tiptoes to look at him closely. Her eyes are bluer than blue and brighter than anything he's ever seen, and he's seen a lot of bright things.

"This is just like we first met," she says. "Candice kept talking to you, and you kept saying nothing."

_And then you kissed me, _Volkner thinks.

"Then I kissed you," Candice says cheerfully.

Before he knows it, she's leaned forward and has planted a kiss on his lips, one that's sweet and gentle and fades away quickly – so unlike Candice herself.

"You know," Candice says matter-of-factly, when she draws away. "Eventually, we're going to have to do something about this. You can't just kiss people and not say anything to them about what you are to each other."

"You kissed_ me_."

"You started it."

* * *

**/kiss number iii.**

"I've always wondered," the black-haired girl muses. "How Ice and Electricity fare against each other."

_Ice has a definite effect on Electric, _the Shining, Shocking Star thinks, but doesn't respond. It's a national holiday today – that means all the Gyms are closed and so are the shops. Candice decided to go to the beach, and dragged Volkner along with her.

Despite living in Sunyshore, a stone's throw away from the seaside, Volkner never really goes to the beach. It's quite enjoyable, actually, as he sits on a rock and dips his feet in the water.

Candice scrambles to her feet and hops excitedly onto the rock, next to him. "Hey! What do you say we have a battle? Candice hasn't battled you in forever!"

"Not right now," Volkner says, looking up at her. Candice is wearing the exact same clothes she usually does; how she can prance through blizzards wearing a short skirt and dance over beaches wearing the exact same thing confuses him more than everything else in this strange, beautiful world they live in.

Candice is a constant source of exasperation, for him, but he can't imagine a world where she doesn't exist.

The Ice-type Gym Leader flops down and sits next to him. "Aw! Why not?"

The blond glances at her disbelievingly. "It's way too hot outside! It's the middle of _summer_, Candice."

"Aren't you used to it? Sunyshore's pretty warm the entire year, y'know. You don't even _have_ winter."

"Yeah, well, I don't come outside that often," Volkner mutters, averting his eyes.

Candice sits silently for a moment before laughing her loud, wonderful laugh.

Every time. Every time it manages to make Volkner's heart stop for a moment.

"Really? What do you do, stand there at the end of your gym all day, every day? That's the stupidest thing ever! You're the _last_ Gym Leader, Volkner! Candice has never gotten more than four challengers in one day, and usually, only one of those manages to move on to your Gym."

Volkner shakes his head. "I take breaks… sometimes. But it's still too hot to battle."

Candice huffs and lies down with her head on his lap. Paralysis immediately floods through Volkner's body, and he attempts to say something, but words don't seem to work anymore, and his limbs aren't moving like he wants them to.

"Honestly, you've got all this around you, and you never took advantage of it? Pathetic!" Candice rants, looking up at him and pouting.

There's silence as they just look at each other. It stretches on for what seems like forever.

Candice's lips part slightly as her eyes search his face. "Volkner," she says finally. "I'm going to kiss you right now."

"Okay," Volkner says, because that's the kind of person she's always been – one who doesn't hold any of her emotions back and does what she feels. Sometimes he's not a big fan of this part of her, but that's the way he likes her.

Candice sits up and, true to her word, kisses him. Volkner doesn't protest.

* * *

**/kiss number iv.**

Being a Gym Leader means attending parties and meetings, which is, in Volkner's opinion, the worst part of it all.

But this party seems more enjoyable than most – perhaps because Volkner has had a bit too much liquor.

He's not the only one. Most of the others are displaying the classic signs of drunkenness. The only one who isn't intoxicated is Jasmine, who is sticking close to Volkner and making sure he doesn't fall over.

"Thanks, Jasmine," the blond Gym Leader slurs, leaning on the petite woman.

"That's all right," Jasmine says cheerfully. "I think you should go home, Volkner."

"No," Volkner mumbles, falling onto a couch. "I don't think so…"

He's out cold immediately. Jasmine smiles a little bit, fixes his shirt, and leaves the party, in case she's persuaded into doing something she doesn't want to do. (Nobody but Volkner knows that she doesn't drink alcohol. Her father's constant bad attitude was the thing that caused this.)

Volkner wakes up an hour later to a loud screaming coming from the other side of the room. The party is still in full swing. He starts to laugh; without Jasmine there to restrain him, who knows what might happen?

His mind is all just a haze – a jumble of mismatched colors and letters and numbers that don't really mean anything right now.

Somebody falls onto the couch next to him.

Volkner glances over.

It's Candice. He smiles at her. Then he laughs. She laughs too. He remembers, through his mind spinning, that it was her eighteenth birthday seven months ago, and that she's probably taking advantage of this by drinking as much as everyone else.

"Hey, Volkner," she says unevenly.

"Having a good night?" Volkner asks, an oblivious grin still plastered onto his face.

"Wonderful," Candice responds.

She leans forward and kisses him. Her mouth tastes of alcohol and smoke instead of snowcones and peppermint, like it's supposed to, but Volkner's inebriated mind couldn't care less. He pulls her over and she falls onto him, planting sloppy kisses on his lips that he returns.

Suddenly she draws back and looks down at him. "What are we doing?" Candice slurs, vowels and consonants blurring into each other. "This isn't how I wanted our fourth kiss to go."

"Yeah," Volkner says as Candice sits down and clumsily rearranges her clothes. "Wait, you count them?"

"I think it's our fourth," Candice mumbles. "I can't think straight."

She sighs, lies down, and falls asleep. Volkner shakes his head to clear it and decides that maybe, it's time for him to go home.

The next morning, neither remember anything about the previous night.

* * *

**/kiss number v.**

"Volkner! What are you doing here?"

Candice grins and skips towards him. "It's the middle of the _day_, Volkner. What if challengers come to take your badge?" Her tone is teasing, and he knows she's making fun of him for being so uptight all the time.

"Well, uh," Volkner says bashfully, scratching the back of his head. "If you get any challengers who actually beat you, I'll just fly back to my Gym to battle them when they get there. Anyway, have you gotten any challengers today?"

"Nope," Candice says cheerily. "Hey, since you're here, I'll show you around!"

Snowpoint isn't very big, so it doesn't take long for them to get through everything. Candice takes Volkner to the lake and they walk along it. Volkner looks down at its shiny, glassy surface and can almost see Water Pokémon darting around under the surface.

They've almost walked around the entire lake when suddenly Candice gasps and grabs Volkner's hand. "Look! It's snowing!"

She must have seen this phenomenon more times than she can count, but it still fascinates her. Candice releases Volkner's hand and jumps up and down, tongue stuck out, and closes her eyes.

Volkner looks up and sees the flakes of snow drifting slowly down to earth. It's more wonderful than he could have ever imagined. _I've… been missing out on all this my entire life. I can't believe it._

And here, against the white landscape, surrounded by snow as soft as cotton, Candice looks in her element. Volkner watches her in wonder as she laughs. The beautiful, beautiful laugh that soars through the air and breathes life into him.

Her cheeks are red and one of her pigtails is loose. Volkner can't think of anything that could possibly be more beautiful.

He takes her hand.

Candice turns to look at him, an expectant smile on her face. "Yeah?"

Volkner dips his head and kisses her. It's the first time he's ever taken the initiative and kissed _her_, instead of the other way around. Snow lands on the back of his neck, but he barely notices as he pulls her closer to him.

He doesn't know why people think kissing in the rain is romantic. Kissing in the snow is so, _so_ much better.


End file.
